


but of all these things i like you best of all

by Fluffifullness



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Coming Out, Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Fix-It, Fluff, Food, M/M, Nightmares, POV Richie Tozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23547520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffifullness/pseuds/Fluffifullness
Summary: “You can cook?” Eddie blurts.Richie blinks. “Yeah. What the fuck? Yes. I know we’re not the pinnacle of functional adulthood, here, but there’s no way I’m the only one in seven, right?”“No,” Ben admits. He takes a few steps toward Richie, like he hopes fleeing the scene will dispel the momentary awkwardness. “It’s just…”“I would’ve guessed you mostly do prepackaged stuff,” Mike adds, following Ben’s lead with an apologetic smile of his own. Eddie does, too, except he also stuffs his hands into his pockets and hunches in on himself just enough to attract Richie’s attention, which is why he inadvertently directs most of his retort at him.(Or: the one where Richie's love language of choice happens to be cooking.)
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 63
Kudos: 631





	but of all these things i like you best of all

**Author's Note:**

> This fic's title is borrowed from a cheesy little song called "I Like Pie I Like Cake" by the Four Clefs.
> 
> This is also my first work for the latest round of the [Trope Bingo challenge on Dreamwidth](https://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/), written for the "food and cooking" trope prompt. If you're curious about what other prompts I'm working with, my specific card is [right here](https://fluffifullness.dreamwidth.org/1032.html)! (And if you happen to have a preference regarding which one I start in on next, feel free to drop me a line here or on tumblr!)

“Dude, what are you doing? It’s supposed to be boiling!”

“Close enough,” Richie decides after looking over the contents of his mother’s favorite saucepan, the one they chose because Richie’s pretty sure she won’t notice if they add another stain or two to its worn sides. The bottom is coated in a fine layer of bubbles that jiggle but don’t rise to the surface when he tries again to move the pan off the burner, his glasses fogging at the edges. “See, it’s steaming.”

“Yeah, stupid, because it’s _hot._ But it says,” Eddie says, smacking the box of jello mix for emphasis, _“right_ here, ‘add boiling water,’ and that’s not boiling.”

“What difference is a couple seconds gonna make?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie admits, “but would you put it back? You’re gonna drop it and burn yourself.”

“Then maybe they’ll let me be in the next _Nightmare on Elm Street,”_ Richie coos, but he still returns the sloshing pan to the stove before Eddie can try to make him and _actually_ spill almost-boiling water on both their feet.

They probably splash a quarter of it onto the counter trying to see which of them can do a better job whisking together the mix and Eddie-approved boiling water, but that’s half the fun. Eddie even stops freaking out over the new patch of green blooming across the front of his shirt when Richie promises they’ll find time to wash it before he has to go home. So Mrs. K won’t fret about how Eddie may have come into contact with alien ectoplasm or toxic waste. Or grass.

There’s just one flaw in their plan, and they don’t notice until they’re finished stirring in the cold water. 

“Uh,” Richie says, pushing up his glasses and frowning over the last step on the box.

“What?”

“This shit takes four hours to set! And we haven’t even added the other stuff yet!”

Eddie snatches the box from him. “Well, what about the speed-set method? Just add ice… except we put too much water in already.”

“That’s okay,” Richie decides, “we’ll just use a little less ice. It just has to cool down faster, right?”

Eddie considers for a moment, then shrugs. “Okay.”

They stir in the grapes and ice cubes at the same time. Eddie does most of the chopping to get the apples ready, and Richie pretends not to enjoy the way his face pinches in concentration the entire time. He doesn’t hold the knife right, Richie knows from watching his mom, but he decides not to say anything, because Eddie’s being careful enough, anyway.

He still makes a mental note to be ready to get down their little box of band-aids at a second’s notice.

They slip the bowl into the freezer for good measure and break to read comics for half an hour.

They come back to find their fruit still sitting in a green soup.

“Ugh,” Eddie comments. He lifts the mixing spoon back out of it with a grimace.

“There, there, Eds, technically it’s still edible,” Richie announces, swinging the freezer door shut a few inches shy of Eddie’s unimpressed face. 

“We’ll give it a little longer,” Eddie decides. “Your mom might not even notice if we clean up, right?”

“If we clean up, she won’t even care,” Richie corrects him. Except maybe about the apples, but only if they actually go to waste. Not that Richie has any strong reservations about fishing them out of a failed jello to snack on. It’d be worth it just for the look on Eddie’s face.

Much to Eddie’s surprise, Richie’s mom _does_ notice, and even helps them fix their creation with a second box of jello she produces from a corner of the pantry Richie hadn’t thought to check before.

The end product is bountiful enough that they decide to make one more attempt at getting everyone else to join them for movies and a homemade snack. Richie tries to advertise it as “from scratch,” which Eddie fervently denies while simultaneously wrestling the phone halfway into his own hands just to remind each friend that he did most of the actual work himself. Richie only lets him because he did, technically, if you don’t count his mom walking them through jello resuscitation. 

Stan rejects their offer again when they admit they’re planning a horror marathon, but Bill agrees and says he’ll drop by Mike’s first to see if he managed to get through the chores that were his original reason for bowing out.

Ben is always pretty easy to wear down, which Richie does until he agrees to join them, as long as they don’t mind letting him keep a light on to work on a project he’s doing.

He’s reading up on local buildings, or was the last time Richie got him talking about it. Mike was contributing a little at that point, but Ben has a way of going down rabbit holes every time he stumbles across something he finds interesting, and that’s a lot of things. 

By the time Ben shows up flanked by a reluctant Stan, Richie and Eddie have made a proper movie-watching fort downstairs. There’s the usual pilled wool blankets and pillows, a stack of napkins they may or may not actually use, popcorn, a full can of whipped cream and enough bowls for all six of them, because Richie had a _feeling_ Stanley would cave.

He’s still not going to pick anything less gory, though; what would be the point of making alien-green jello if they weren’t going to watch appropriately gross sci-fi shit to go with it?

None of it winds up scaring any of them, though, and that maybe, _probably_ would have been true even if last summer had never happened.

Richie badgers Eddie into having a popcorn food fight with him halfway through _The Stuff,_ not really because he’s bored but because Eddie catches him very much _not_ looking at the screen and he has to do _something._ It’s fine. It’s fun, even when popcorn starts landing in bowls of jello and Richie’s mom makes him spend the next morning with a vacuum cleaning everything up.

He never does tell Eddie about the whipped cream on his nose.

-*-

If you asked Eddie whose idea the brownies were, he’d probably – scratch that, _definitely_ – finger-point at Richie, but Richie is privately certain that neither of them really remembers for sure who started it. Like, sure, Richie dubs the project a Pre-College Weed Brownie Practice Session right off the bat, but Eddie is also a fiend for sugary snacks, and that’s only partly because Mrs. K never lets him have the good stuff at home.

The good stuff being all the best junk food, not the weed Richie assures Eddie they’ll both have ample access to in less than a year’s time. 

“Except no one’s going to sell _you_ any,” Eddie says, lazily pushing a stick of butter around a saucepan with the wooden spoon he spent a solid minute inspecting for splinters, like he hasn’t used it a dozen times through the years, shoulder-to-shoulder with Richie in Maggie Tozier’s pristine kitchen.

They do have a tendency to make it considerably less pristine, though.

“They’ll give it to me for free in exchange for a date?” Richie guesses, batting his eyelashes at Eddie, who snorts and covers his grin with his shoulder. 

“No, they’ll want to buy it off you. Obviously.” Eddie gives him an emphatic toe-to-tip once-over that makes Richie’s face heat up faster than the oven. 

“Hey, that just means I’ll get invited to all the best frat parties,” he defends himself as a distraction from the fluttering in his chest. “Just you wait, I’ll be Mister Popular. They’ll need me for my brownie-making prowess.”

“Not to throw a wrench in your plan, but you know box mixes exist, too, right?”

Richie gasps in horror. He lets his hands still against the mixing bowl he’s been laboring over for full effect. “That is _not_ the same. If you don’t make it with love”—

“It won’t get you high?” Eddie rolls his eyes. The butter is finished melting, so he turns the burner off and elbows Richie over so he can pour the still-bubbling liquid over the eggs and sugar. Richie waits until Eddie’s safely returned the saucepan to the stove to cool, then reaches over and smears a generous helping of flour down the front of his shirt. It stands out nicely against the blue, and better yet, it earns him an affronted yelp.

He makes no effort to wipe the grin off his face, even when Eddie’s eyes settle on the flour Richie didn’t manage to clear from the counter in a single pass. 

“Don’t even”—

But of course he’s not fast enough to dodge the twin white smears Eddie leaves on him, or the little extra he flicks at his face, straight out of the still-open flour bin on the counter. 

Richie spits flour out of his mouth, much to Eddie’s vocal disgust. There’s even some dusting his glasses. He does his best Eddie impression: “That is _so_ unsanitary, you know, dipping your hands in our _ingredients.”_

Eddie looks like he’ll give himself a headache trying too hard not to let his smile show, but he can’t hide his pink-cheeked amusement from Richie all the same.

“You know flour can have salmonella in it, asshole?”

“Oh good, so swallowing some might actually kill me. I didn’t wanna go to class tomorrow anyway.”

“I’ve seen you eat an entire box of cookie dough in one sitting. You’re fine,” Eddie says with another roll of his eyes. Still, he snatches Richie’s glasses right off his face and uses the edge of his own shirt to clean them before handing them back. The gesture makes Richie’s stomach somersault so much he actually can’t answer, for fear of what he might say.

He did _share_ that box with Eddie, who Richie seems to recall grudgingly admitted that, salmonella or not, there was something about a literal no-bake cookie. 

They manage to finish the brownies without also flinging bits of raw egg at each other, a temptation Richie only resists because he doesn’t _actually_ want to give Eddie any potential food poisoning to fret over. He’d much rather enjoy the fruits of their labor – which, for Eddie, is that first bite of chocolate that’s only cooled enough not to leave third-degree burns on the roof of his mouth. 

For Richie, it’s the look on Eddie’s face when he forgets to finish chewing before proudly announcing that it’s “really good, Rich, try one!”

Richie’s only half-kidding when he takes a bite and feigns apathy – totally fakes it, because holy _shit_ this recipe really does make them melt-in-your-mouth good – swallows around the tight lump in his throat and says, “I don’t know, Eds, they’re still not as sweet as you.”

-*-

The Losers make their graduation cake together in Ben’s kitchen. It’s way too many hands on deck in a confined space, plus they’re all overflowing with excitement and the kind of unrestrained joy that only a group of teenagers facing one long summer and then sweet, sweet freedom can know.

Ben has his hands full trying to keep the hurricane relatively contained, so Richie gets to enjoy playing ringleader to this particular circus. 

Well – him and Eds. They may not know how to make things look good, but by now it’d be hard to deny that they _do_ know how to make them _taste_ good. 

“You just follow the directions in the recipe book,” Eddie huffs the third or fourth time Bill asks him for clarification as they work, but Richie can see him preen a little when he thinks no one’s paying attention. 

_God, Eds,_ he thinks a little mournfully, _you better find some friends in New York who can appreciate how cute you are._

And if he doesn’t – and even if he does – Richie’s already busy coming up with grand plans to surprise him with a visit the first chance he gets. If he can’t afford to fly, he’ll drive, and if he can’t afford to drive, he’ll break records on the back of the bike his parents think they’re going to surprise him with tomorrow. If he and Eddie don’t have the same breaks, maybe he’ll just sneak into one of Eddie’s classes, drop into the seat beside him and wait for him to notice. 

_Bet he wouldn’t be able to hide his smile at all then,_ Richie thinks, prematurely smug. 

“Earth to Richie,” Stanley interrupts, brandishing his hand right in front of Richie’s face. Fuck, was he staring? Eddie is looking at him, too, the corners of his mouth turned up and his dark eyebrows angled in a perplexed little smile. Not upset, thank fuck, but unsure.

“Wow,” Ben comments. “Isn’t that a little too much?”

Richie tears his eyes away from Eddie, who’s already on his way over to investigate, and realizes with another cupful of sugar balanced in one hand that he’d been about to add it to a growing mountain in the center of his mixing bowl.

Eddie just laughs when he sees, which helps Richie unfreeze his lips enough to serve up an excuse about not wanting to disappoint Eddie and his insatiable sweet tooth.

“Great, Richie, it’ll be sweet _and_ have the consistency of sand,” Eddie retorts. Richie lets him steal the measuring cup and bowl so he can start siphoning off the worst of the mess, and by some miracle, nobody comments on how completely Richie is struck dumb. He should probably at least take a step back so his shoulder isn’t squished against Eddie’s, but Eddie doesn’t seem to mind – just elbows him in the ribs and pokes fun at him for totally bungling his job as head chef. 

“Just keepin’ you on your toes, Eds,” Richie says.

Eddie’s wide grin is contagious. Richie still has three months left to enjoy it as much as humanly possible, but he misses it already. 

-*-

“Here,” Richie says, pink-cheeked and breathing hard. His hands are shaking a little, so to cover that up he holds his carefully-packed tupperware out to Eddie like it’s a battering ram.

Eddie’s eyes widen over tear-streaked cheeks. He looks at the container like it’s a new species of snake, but after a moment’s fleeting hesitation his expression softens and he takes it anyway.

“What is this?” There’s still the slightest tremor to his voice.

“Snacks,” Richie responds with as bright a grin as he can muster. He watches Eddie peel back the lid just enough to take a peek at the contents.

“Apples with peanut butter?” Eddie says with a snort. “What are we, eight?”

“Yeah, apples,” Richie says proudly. “For the Big Apple, get it?”

Of course Richie knows Eddie’s not actually going to New York City, but it’s New York all the same, so good enough. The joke makes it easier to brush off his sudden rush to make it here in time, his shaking hands and the ominous lump in his throat.

Eddie shakes his head and clamps the lid shut. Behind them, Mrs. K’s beat-up old car heaves a long, rattling honk. Eddie jumps a little, his grip on the apples tightening. 

“I told her I had to be there a few days early for an orientation thing,” Eddie explains under his breath. It’s more than he managed to say over the phone a little over an hour ago, breathlessly apologetic and only on the _verge_ of tears. “Just in case she… in case.”

“If she pulls anything, give me a call,” Richie says. “I’m always down to be your personal chauffeur.”

“The way you drive, that’s a death threat,” Eddie says, like they hadn’t been excitedly planning this road trip since the moment they realized Eddie’s classes started a week ahead of the rest of theirs. Richie feels a little guilty for not inviting anyone else to help him see Eddie off, but in his defense – either Eddie called them, too, or he didn’t, and if he didn’t, who is Richie to give up this one-on-one parting-of-ways?

“Take good care of that tupperware,” Richie says.

“Not myself, just the tupperware?” Eddie questions, his smile coming easy despite the second honk that sounds from the car.

“Nah, I don’t have to worry about you,” Richie tells him. It’s supposed to be the first half of a joke, but he means it. He wants Eddie to know he means it, too, so he adds, “You got this, Eds.”

If they’re not quick, Eddie’s liable to get bodily dragged into the passenger seat, and that’s not how either of them wants this scene to end, but… the thought of leaving Eddie alone with her for hours of endless guilt-tripping… that was the whole point of them all going together, and Richie’s pretty sure Eddie’s mom knows that. He doesn’t blame Eddie for telling her, he can’t, but he still hates that they have to say goodbye like this.

“I’ll get it back to you next time,” Eddie promises, and then he bites his lip and takes a step back.

Without meaning to, Richie follows.

“Fuck, Rich, if you cry, I’ll cry,” Eddie warns. His voice is already wobbly, though, and Richie knows right where to look to see fresh tears starting to gather.

Richie doesn’t want to see Eddie cry. _If I can’t see you, you can’t see me,_ he thinks, and takes his glasses off to fold them into his hand. He risks crushing them pulling Eddie into a hug. Eddie, for his part, just shuffles the apples to one side so they can get close enough to leave big, gross snot stains on each other’s shoulders, as befits the occasion. 

_They grow up so fast,_ Richie is tempted to tease between breathless sniffles. _Someone’s_ gotta play the proud parent around here, and Richie’s proud enough for two.

“We’re getting out, Eds.”

“Containment breach,” Eddie shoots back, catching Richie off guard so they both dissolve into wet laughter. God, he’s gonna miss that sense of humor, and that smile, and the unsubtle way Eddie wrinkles his nose at the wet spot on his shirt when his mom’s calling forces them apart.

“Little something to remember me by,” Richie tells him, re-donning his glasses so they sit more or less evenly on his nose. Eddie stops tugging gingerly at the sleeve of his shirt, looking caught out. 

“I’ll remember you,” he defends. “We’ll talk – right?”

“Yeah, of course – when I’m not too busy writing letters to your mom,” Richie replies. 

Eddie glares unconvincingly and flips Richie off over his shoulder on his way back to the car. His grip on the tupperware is so tight his knuckles have gone white, and it’s all still too soon, so Richie swallows down the butterflies and the lump in his throat and calls to make Eddie pause one last time with his hand on the door.

“I’ll write to you, too,” he says. Jokes, photos, recipes – he’ll send Eddie anything he can think of to make sure Eddie doesn’t fade right into the same total radio silence Beverly did. “I will. I promise.”

Eddie smiles. “Guess that means you’ll finally have to learn how to read, huh?”

“Fuck you, dude,” Richie laughs. “I’ll just dictate everything.”

“…Thanks, Rich. Thanks for coming, and – and these, and everything.”

Richie smiles back. “Anytime, Eds.”

He doesn’t stop watching the car until long after it’s disappeared around a corner, until he can mouth a silent _I love you_ and know without a doubt that no one, least of all Eddie, will be able to see it.

And then he turns around, picks up his bike and goes back home to finish his own packing.

-*-

Every recipe begins with sound. That’s the first step, as far as Richie’s concerned – 1. Turn the TV on to whatever looks reasonably entertaining – censored horror movies, sitcom reruns, spaghetti westerns, reality shows that feel like trivialized life-or-death game shows from the not-so-distant dystopian future, et cetera.

If you’d rather not dwell on the sound of people talking in your chronically empty apartment, music is an acceptable alternative.

1.5 – Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place a large skillet over medium-high heat. Begin mashing the hell out of assorted fruits with the business end of a fork. 

Maybe he should’ve considered making a jam or something, actually. Just sprinkling the remainder of the berries that have spent the past week slowly shrivelling up in his fridge directly onto this french toast is _good,_ but somehow it still feels like a waste. Maybe even more of a waste than finding out just how badly he can fuck up his first attempt at homemade jam. 

Richie flicks a few droplets of water from the sink onto the skillet and gets a satisfying sizzle from it, so he follows that up with a lump of butter and then gets to work cooking the batter-soaked bread slices, dipping them one at a time and letting them dribble slimy trails from the bowl to the pan. 

It’s pretty much the only way he ever does any cleaning, after all – making a big enough mess that wiping it off doesn’t feel like a total waste of time.

There are still a couple of eggs left when he’s finished, and the pan is reasonably clean and definitely buttery enough, so Richie shrugs and quickly beats them together with a sprinkle of Italian seasoning mix while the TV spits canned laughter from the other room.

It’s way more food than even he can possibly eat in a single sitting, but he’d rather give it the old college try than let the raw ingredients spoil while he’s off touring for a month.

At least he _meant_ to overdo it this time. That’s a lot less pathetic than getting so caught up in a daydream about cooking with or for some mystery man that he loses track of what he’s doing. His freezer is stuffed with the casualties of days like that, but hey – it makes it easy to reheat stuff after late nights and red-eye flights.

Richie skips the dining room table entirely in favor of the living room couch. His beat-up coffee table has seen twice as many meals, and it shows.

Honestly, what kind of heartless bastard leaves _that_ many stains on a piece of furniture and then willingly caves to his nosey manager’s requests that he consider getting a new one? Not Richie.

In fairness, it’s not like Jason knows just how far down “minor cosmetic issues” are on the list of Reasons Richie Tozier Doesn’t Have a Girlfriend. Richie is comfortably certain he doesn’t really _want_ to know beyond the minimum level of caring needed to appease his publicist, but he can think of half a dozen tabloids that would at least _consider_ entering a Battle Royale fight to the death for a chance to win that scoop.

_Probably giving yourself a little too much credit there, Trashmouth._

Still, he hopes he never gets used to people being even a little bit willing to put a price on his private life. Richie’s been here – in LA, in the industry – long enough to know that’s how people get careless.

Not that he has anything to be careless _about_ – or will. And not that he isn’t fine with that, mostly. He has a routine when he’s home and no time when he isn’t.

He just… doesn’t like having nothing to look at while he eats but empty chairs and the long, cluttered breakfast bar that separates the dining room from the kitchen. 

-*-

Richie can’t find it in himself to get frustrated about the _time_ they have just trying to find a restaurant in Derry that isn’t packed to the gills with smiling, happy people. Newly equipped as he is now with over a decade’s worth of memories of past Canal Days festivals and “busy” Derry weekends, he could make a pretty strong case for this turnout being record-breaking – and wouldn’t you know it, all seven of them went straight to sleep after Neibolt and the quarry without thinking to make dinner reservations for that night. A classic blunder.

He’s pretty sure the waitress who turns them away at Jade of the Orient does so with no small amount of satisfaction – which, all things considered, is fair. Beggars can’t be choosers, but that one was a stretch for a reason. 

“Who knew Derry _had_ this many people?” Bill marvels from the sidewalk in front of a mom-and-pop BBQ place that looks like it’s been around a long time, albeit definitely not 27 years long.

“They’re celebrating,” Mike observes, tired-but-smiling with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. “They just don’t know it.”

Richie wonders why he never saw this particular side effect of Its death in the Deadlights. Wonders if maybe Eddie’s death would have left a fresh, lingering hole big enough to eclipse the one they just filled in once and for all. 

“We could just hijack the kitchen at the townhouse,” he offers, jumping at the chance to lean into the first thing that’s been really different from the version of events he saw in the Deadlights. After an entire late morning and afternoon of restless sleep and nightmares, he should be able to get away with enjoying _not_ feeling like the carpet's about to be ripped out from under him. “Get our own ingredients at Buckley’s, eat at the bar?”

“Are we sure no one will be around?” Stanley says a fraction of a second before Eddie can. “I mean – things are pretty normal. That place is probably supposed to have staff.”

“We’ll just sweet-talk them into letting us,” Beverly says.

“I’m good at that,” Richie agrees.

“Dick jokes don’t count as sweet talk,” Eddie tells him. Richie starts to grin at him but falters at the sight of his arms crossed on his chest. Just like—

“I think it’s a good idea,” Bill continues, oblivious. Richie can feel Eddie’s eyes on him and knows he has to have noticed his little faux pas, but that doesn’t mean Richie has to acknowledge it.

“Well, if Big Bill says so,” Mike laughs. “Did you have anything in mind, Rich?”

“Yeah,” Richie declares. He starts to edge back toward their parked cars in the hopes that it’ll get everyone else moving, too. “Whatever you guys want. I’m kinda craving pizza, but… I don’t know, fish? Bill can treat us to salmon and I’ll fix a marinade. Pilaf’s faster…”

It’s at this point that he realizes, 1) that he’s a solid couple yards away and no one’s following, and 2) they’re all staring at him with varying degrees of surprise. He stops to raise an eyebrow at them.

“What? Did I forget an allergy in there? Wanna try for Mickey D’s after all?”

“You can cook?” Eddie blurts.

Richie blinks. “Yeah. What the fuck? Yes. I know we’re not the pinnacle of functional adulthood, here, but there’s no way I’m the only one in seven, right?”

“No,” Ben admits. He takes a few steps toward Richie, like he hopes fleeing the scene will dispel the momentary awkwardness. “It’s just…”

“I would’ve guessed you mostly do prepackaged stuff,” Mike adds, following Ben’s lead with an apologetic smile of his own. Eddie does, too, except he also stuffs his hands into his pockets and hunches in on himself just enough to attract Richie’s attention, which is why he inadvertently directs most of his retort at him.

“When I’m touring, sometimes! What, I can’t be funny _and_ have a few basic life skills?”

He almost says something about being an eligible bachelor, _maybe the most eligible one in all of LA, thank you very much,_ but by the time it makes it to the tip of his tongue, it’s already a jumbled mess of nouns and pronouns and things he’s not ready for anyone to hear.

It’s kind of bittersweet. Of course his friends don’t know he still likes to cook; they haven’t seen him in two decades, and he didn’t start making actual meals until college, when his shoestring budget and pizza-heavy diet forced his hand.

“The jury’s still out on the ‘funny’ part,” Stanley says. Richie’s honestly surprised that Eddie doesn’t nod his agreement.

It doesn’t take all that long to get back to their cars, but given the unusual scarcity of parking spots anywhere that doesn’t have its own designated lot, combined with the inherent ridiculousness of splitting seven people into _three cars,_ Richie reluctantly has to admit to himself that Stan had a point reaming them out for their inability to carpool. 

Neither that nor his own nerves is going to stop him from continuing to let Eddie chauffeur him around while he expounds upon his position that if you’re going to rent a car, it _might as well_ be a Mustang.

“And fuck you guys for rejecting her just because she’s red. That’s like letting the clown win from beyond the grave, it’s unfair.”

“Rich,” Eddie interrupts, without taking his eyes off the road to look at Richie. Something about that strikes Richie as suspiciously convenient, except Eddie’s tone is serious enough that Richie also lets his attention slide toward the view out the passenger-side window. Who the hell is he to judge?

“What’s up, Eds?”

Eddie takes a deep breath. When he lets it go, it’s in the form of words: “Will you call me when you land in LA?”

 _Okay,_ Richie thinks. That wasn’t one of the questions he’d been bracing himself for. It’s too easy. “Sure, if you think you’ll be up. I don’t know what time you old folks go to bed, but it’ll be like three a.m. your time.”

“I’ll be up,” Eddie promises in lieu of taking the obvious bait. “And – and then again the next day, too. If you get a chance?” He doesn’t give Richie the time to agree or disagree before he adds, “Don’t fucking forget, asshole, I’m serious.”

_Oh._

“Is that what this is about? Forgetting?”

It occurs to Richie that _maybe_ he shouldn’t have just come right out and said that. The car jiggles a little, more or less the only outward sign that Eddie flinches in response, at least until he chances an uneasy glance in Richie’s direction.

“Did Mike – we don’t think it’ll happen again, right?”

He looks so serious that Richie flounders trying to come up with an appropriate response. How is he supposed to explain that he _knows_ it won’t because he saw it in the clown’s glowing crystal balls without _also_ opening the door to questions he doesn’t want to answer? He’d try the age-old line about just having a “good feeling,” but there’s approximately zero chance Eddie would go for it.

Instead, he plants a hand solemnly on Eddie’s shoulder, careful not to make him jerk the wheel again, and says, “Right! Who’d wanna forget such a fun weekend?”

“Well, _I_ don’t – fine, okay, sorry for fucking asking”—

“I will,” Richie interrupts. “Not – I won’t forget, I mean I’ll call. For real this time.”

“Technically you promised to write,” Eddie relents. His posture relaxes, and although he’s long since returned to keeping his eyes focused on the road, Richie doesn’t need to see his whole face to notice half a smile there.

“You want me to write? Because I know all the best places to get postcards in LA and I can guarantee you’ll hate literally all of them.”

Damn Derry for still being small enough to be reasonably navigable on a bike, let alone by car; Eddie has to postpone his reaction to that until he’s finished parking in front of Derry’s second-largest grocery store. He does it in a single smooth motion for the fifth time tonight while Richie tries to look a little less embarrassingly impressed. Speaking of basic life skills Richie _doesn’t_ have… “Watch out, I think you might be an inch farther to the left.”

“Wanna bet?” Eddie challenges. Evidently he’s not content unless he’s actively outdoing himself with his own cuteness, because he actually climbs out of the car and takes several steps back to inspect the car’s position in the spot. He nods to himself while Richie folds his arms on the hood and doesn’t spare a single glance at the ground.

“Nah, pretty sure I’d lose.”

“You’re not even looking,” Eddie huffs. _Fucking adorable._

“Don’t have to.” Over Eddie’s shoulder, he can see Bill going for an easier spot near the outskirts of the lot, and his thoughts tick back toward his options. Fish might be pushing it time-wise, after all, but if he makes something light while it’s baking he can tide everyone over _and_ show off an appropriate amount.

He doesn’t even notice Eddie watching him until he’s talking again, voice pitched low enough that their approaching friends probably don’t hear.

“New York has some pretty bad postcards, too,” he says. “We could trade.”

Richie beams at him. “You got yourself a deal!”

-*-

Richie is mouthing along to his latest attempt at stream-of-consciousness word vomit when his phone rings. It’s annoying for the fraction of a second it takes him to recover from losing his rhythm, at which point he sees Eddie’s name on the caller ID and scrambles to pick up.

“Eddie! To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

There’s a lot of staticky, garbled sound from the other end of the line, loud enough that Richie has to hold the phone an inch or two from his ear. Well, fancy that – even Eddie butt dials people. He probably left his phone open to Richie’s most recent slew of photos, at least one of which he fully intends to photoshop into a picture of the Hollywood Sign and print out on shiny postcard-worthy paper. Just as soon as he gets around to learning how the software works. 

Perks of taking an extended break from – well, basically everything. The _point_ may be to stay home and focus on writing, but he can cheat a little.

A door opens and closes somewhere in New York, and then Eddie’s breathless voice startles Richie _and_ the butterflies in his stomach. He breaks into a surprised grin at the sound of the first syllable. “Richie? Sorry about that, I was… Anyway, can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Eds.”

He glances at the clock in the upper right-hand corner of his laptop screen: 9:23 PM. Jeez, it’s late out there on the East Coast, three hours in the future. Maybe it’s no wonder Eddie seemed so wide awake when Richie called him from LAX, or that he managed to stay awake, albeit obviously drowsy, for a conversation that managed to meander its way through Richie’s entire trip home. It’s all Richie remembers now when he thinks about coming back – trading jokes with Eddie in the backseat of a Lyft. Letting Eddie rattle off statistics about the dangers of ridesharing and never quite being able to tell if he’d just Googled it or if he actually had it all stored in his head.

He remembers how quiet his apartment felt when they hung up; on some level, he feels like he’s been chasing that high ever since. It hasn’t been easy, exactly, because Eddie rarely calls.

“Cool,” Eddie says. If Richie didn’t know better, he’d think he was nervous. With no further preamble, he adds, “Are you busy?”

Richie makes sure to save his work before he closes the laptop’s lid. He had to re-learn _that_ lesson the hard way, and he might actually die if he has to learn it again.

“Nope,” he affirms, stealthily relocating to the couch and dragging the unfolded throw blanket onto his lap. “Need me to book a flight over there? Help you bury a body?”

“I need help opening a jar of pickles,” Eddie corrects, and Richie considers switching to video call just to get a good look at the smile he can hear in his voice. The picture in his mind’s eye isn’t as clear as he wishes it was; maybe if he starts physically mailing Eddie pictures of himself, he’ll get lucky and get one back. It wouldn’t be weird to put it up on the fridge if Eddie sent it himself.

In the meantime, Richie gasps noisily into the receiver. “This is serious. I better see if Ben can lend me one of his private jets.”

“He only has the one,” Eddie says, like just _one_ private jet is downright humble. 

“Which he’s not using,” Richie points out. It’s true, and Richie has the selfies of him and Bev getting cozy on a little boat to prove it. He wonders how many little boats they own between the two of them. Maybe _he_ should get a little boat.

He and Eddie pass some time chatting about the adventures everyone else has been getting up to. The more they do, the more Richie gets the feeling he’s not the only one who’s been living vicariously through the other Losers while he takes a comparative eternity to get his shit together. Eddie _has_ his shit together, as far as Richie can tell, but he supposes there’s probably not much excitement in a divorce. Screaming matches excluded, except Richie has no idea if Eddie’s even been getting up to any of that.

He sort of hopes not; he hopes it was easy, _is_ easy. Cathartic, if nothing else.

Eddie agrees that since Richie lives on the coast anyway, he absolutely _should_ get himself a boat. And then, of course, he should reenact scenes from coastal horror movies, preferably by drafting all their friends as extras when they come down to visit for Christmas.

“We could do _The Fog._ Best scene in the movie,” Richie says. “Less fog, more impaling.”

“I don’t know, hard to pass on that one where the zombie’s hiding in a cabinet in the bottom of the boat. You know, those two guys come to investigate and one of them shoots it ‘til it falls back into the water?”

“Fulci!” Richie recalls. “You remember that!”

“I remember you made me watch it with you because you were too chickenshit to watch it alone,” Eddie tells him.

“Yeah? Well, I seem to recall a certain someone _else_ almost puking when that lady gets stabbed in the eye with a piece of wood.”

Eddie gags at the thought of it, an echo over twenty years in the making. “Fuck you for reminding me of that.”

He doesn’t point out that Richie only managed to sit through that scene because he didn’t actually look at it. Either he doesn’t remember that much, or he’s just nice enough to keep letting it slide unmentioned, like so many other little things Richie always appreciated Eddie for not calling him on. 

Speaking of which – “Did you like the postcard I sent? It come yet?”

“‘I heart NY’ is _our_ thing,” Eddie tells him. Fabric rustles in the background, a blanket maybe; Eddie’s voice doesn’t sound distant enough for him to be folding laundry with Richie on speaker. “…But yeah, I liked it. It really brightens up this shitty mini-fridge.”

Which implies he’s looking at it as they speak. _And they say apartment rentals are horrible in LA._

“Hey, at least you’re like… an equivalent size. If it were me, I’d be going shopping every other day.”

“Shut up,” Eddie counters. “I’m not gonna be here long enough to make buying a bigger one worth it. Besides, you’re forgetting that some of us aren’t fucking gourmet chefs.”

“Aw, shucks,” Richie gushes.

By the time he finally remembers to check the time on his phone, over an hour has passed in the blink of an eye. He’s also been operating under the vague assumption that it’s been a Friday night this whole time, but a quick glance at the drop-down screen confirms it’s actually still Thursday. Which means, technically, that it _is_ Friday on Eddie’s end.

He should probably make sure Eddie knows.

“So, how seriously do you New Yorkers take the whole ‘city that never sleeps’ thing? Not that I don’t believe you’re so good at…” Shit, is it math? It’s probably math, right? “…risk analyzing that you could do it on a couple hours of sleep.”

 _I could do it_ in _my sleep, Richie._

But Eddie doesn’t say that, or anything, for several beats. Finally, he sighs, and that nervous edge creeps back into his voice. “I, uh, don’t have work tomorrow.”

Huh. Richie’d all but forgotten he was taking Eddie’s mind off of anything to begin with, and here he is inadvertently putting it right back where it was. 

“Ooh, a long weekend to celebrate officially being single, huh? Just promise you’ll Facetime me if you get wasted enough to actually dance. I want photo evidence.”

Eddie snorts softly. “Not on your life.”

Richie throws his legs over the arm of the couch, well aware that the position will only be comfortable for a few minutes tops, and waits for the other shoe to drop. 

Eddie sighs. “I quit.”

“Huh,” Richie breathes. “As in today?”

“It wasn’t an impulse thing,” Eddie defends immediately. “I put in my two weeks two weeks ago. So… today was it.”

Richie can’t help feeling guilty about that; he should’ve known two weeks ago. Before that, even.

As if reading his mind, Eddie clears his throat. “You’re the first person I’ve told. Outside of work. But that’s kind of… you’re the first _friend_ I’ve told.”

Something unfurls in Richie’s chest. He’s not gonna be the one who does Eddie the discourtesy of haranguing him with all the obvious “What now?” questions he’s dying to know the answers to. The wheels are already turning in his head, though. If he’s not going to be in his apartment “long enough,” where _will_ he be? Was it the job itself he intended to quit, or his whole career?

One question couldn’t hurt. It’s the most important one, anyway.

“Sooo, how do you feel about it?”

Eddie chuckles. It’s kind of staticky. “What are you, my therapist? I feel fucking awful, obviously, but”—another rustle of fabric, like he’s shrugging to himself out there where no one can see it. “I don’t think I regret it.”

Richie smiles up at the ceiling. “Then I’m happy for you, Eds. And hey, welcome to the club.”

“You didn’t quit,” Eddie disagrees. “You have a _plan.”_

“Plans are for suckers,” Richie announces. “I’m just throwing darts blindfolded and hoping one or two hit the bullseye.”

“Poetic,” Eddie says dryly. “You should try writing songs while you’re at it.”

“Nah, I’ll leave that stuff up to Ben and Weird Al.” Richie rights himself and moves his phone to his other hand. That one’s starting to sweat just as much, but if Eddie could be that brave right on the heels of his first major life change in twenty-odd years, Richie can survive stringing together a couple of sentences to put himself just a little bit out there. It doesn’t even have to mean anything. It _doesn’t_ mean anything, except that he wants to be there for his friend.

“Listen, uh…” _Great start, Tozier, the string’s already looking a little frayed._ “I – I don’t know what you need right now, but I have enough fridge space for two. You know, if you need a place to crash.”

Eddie is quiet for so long that Richie’s already shaky confidence starts to crumble. He has to squeeze his eyes shut to add, “Seriously, no hard feelings if you’ve already got something lined up. You know I’d drag you all over the place here if you let me.”

 _How the fuck was_ that _better?_

“Just fridge space?”

It’s Richie’s turn to fall mostly silent, at least until he remembers what a joke is. “No, there’s a freezer, too.”

“I’m forty, though, so – no couches?”

“I wouldn’t make you sleep on the couch,” Richie assures him in a hurry. “There’s a guest room.”

Saying that makes the possibility feel a lot more real. The only use that room’s ever seen has been the occasional visit from one or both of Richie’s parents, but even then it’s been a few years since they flew out here instead of the other way around. 

He’ll have to do some cleaning, he realizes. The thought makes him… nervous? Giddy?

He wrestles the feeling down. “Just think about it, okay?” _I’d love to see you,_ he resolutely does _not_ say.

Eddie’s voice is soft. Genuine. “Thanks, Rich.”

Richie blinks. A younger Eddie clutching an old tupperware stuffed full of apple wedges flashes across the backs of his eyelids. _“Thanks, Rich.”_ For coming, for everything.

_I love you._

“Before you thank me wait ‘til you see my apartment. I spent thirty minutes organizing my closet by color because I was bored, but other than that? It’ll probably fall short of your standards.”

Eddie brightens. “I can help with that! _If_ I come.”

The last part is tacked on like an afterthought, and Richie might not be imagining its insincerity. It’s enough to drive him crazy hoping.

-*-

Richie has been checking his phone for texts every two or three minutes for the past forty, so he sees the typing symbol before Eddie even manages to hit send on his first message in several hours. 

_‘Just landed, how far away are you?’_

Richie snaps a picture of the blue ‘Cell Phone Waiting Lot’ sign. He’s tempted to throw in a looming silhouette of his raised middle finger, but Eddie’s been en route to LA for something like nine hours if you count his absurdly long layover in Denver, so instead Richie settles for a meticulously curated string of emojis featuring an avocado; a guy running; a guy _swimming_ ; an emoji wearing a party hat; an unobtrusive red heart; and, of course, a clown.

_‘Ur chariot awaits!’_

He gets an alien emoji back with the caption, _‘Where did you get the avocado?’_

Richie sends him back a shrugging emoji and a second avocado.

The thirty-odd minutes it takes Eddie to rescue his luggage from baggage claim and make his way to passenger pick-up seems absurd until Richie catches sight of him standing on the curb flanked by not two but _four_ suitcases, only one of which is small enough to be a normal carry-on.

“Shit, Eds, I know you’re secretly almost as ripped as Ben, but did you actually carry all of this out here by yourself?”

“Hello to you, too,” Eddie says, turning to face Richie with a wide smile. He’s looking a little pale and a lot exhausted, but less grumpy than Richie expected him to be after all the hassle of traveling long-distance and being trapped in an enclosed space with a hundred other people’s germs. “I took two trips because _you_ were taking forever.”

“They made me circle around when I didn’t see you!” Richie defends. Not to be outdone by Eddie and his muscles, he goes to lift the two largest suitcases into his car. In Richie’s educated opinion, there’s no fucking way they don’t exceed the standard fifty-pound weight limit. The whole car rocks when he manages to heave them onto the back seat.

“You’re not supposed to lift with your back,” Eddie frets. Richie can’t for the life of him see any difference in the way Eddie lifts the other two bags into the trunk, except maybe the defined bulge of his biceps. He has his jacket tied around his waist, leaving nothing but a short-sleeved T-shirt to conceal his arms.

Richie scores a golden opportunity to appreciate them more fully when Eddie pulls him in for a hug. It’s unjustly cut short by an unmoved airport cop who reminds them that there are people waiting for a spot to pick up their own passengers.

There aren’t, actually, but Richie doesn’t need to be told twice to get his hands off of Eddie and onto the steering wheel. Eddie looks like he wants to snap at the guy, but for some reason, he doesn’t. Sure, he’s just doing his job, but that’s never stopped Eddie before. It’s one of his most endearing qualities, although Richie is unquestionably biased on the subject. 

Eddie’s glower fades fast in LA traffic. Out of the corner of his eye, Richie watches him raptly drink in his first glimpses of transplanted palm trees and the earliest of what will probably be many billboards advertising recreational weed.

“Hey, could we stop for food somewhere? I’m fucking starving.”

Richie laughs. “I figured you’d reject all the meal options they had on the flight.”

“They’re never as good as they look. And they don’t – I read somewhere, they don’t even store them at the right temperature.”

“Well, there’s a surprise back home in that fridge I keep telling you about,” Richie says. “But if you’re dying to try an In-N-Out burger first thing, we’re about to pass like a dozen of them.”

“I’ll take my chances with the surprise,” Eddie says. The buildings that are breezing past them start to run together. Strip malls, gas stations, one- or two-story buildings that house restaurants and offices. It must not hold a candle to the skyscrapers and brownstones of NYC, because Eddie soon straightens his back against the seat and looks at Richie instead.

Richie responds with a knowing grin. “Not gonna ask me what it is?”

“Then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

He does sound curious, though, and he doesn’t look away until it becomes clear that Richie really isn’t going to come right out and tell him. It’s tempting, of course, because Richie is equal parts excited to have a guinea pig for his cooking and wary of giving Eddie unrealistically high expectations for tonight’s thing. He’s just pinning his hopes on Eddie being as disproportionately impressed this time as he was when Richie made dinner for all of them back in Derry. 

A comfortable, sleepy silence settles over them for the remainder of the drive, punctuated only by Eddie’s occasional questions and Richie’s humming along to the radio station he flips on out of force of habit. Just to mess with Eddie, he even hums discordantly along with the host’s between-song chatter.

Eddie finally cracks up the third or fourth time he does it. “God, what even was that? Are you _sure_ you’re not also writing songs? Awful ones?”

“Only if you’ll sing the backup vocals,” Richie quips. He manages to get the car parked in his usual spot after having to pull it back out to adjust his position no less than three times, a new low he immediately blames on having an audience. 

His audience – who happens to be a flawless driver when he isn’t running red lights and yelling at other people on the road – only takes that as an invitation to tease him about his ability to perform under pressure.

Richie helps him lug his things all the way up to the apartment anyway; he’s nice like that.

He opens his door with a wink and a flourish, achieving a bastardized cross between fancy butler and deranged circus ringmaster. “Tah-dah!”

Richie steps aside so that Eddie can lurch zombie-like over the threshold, his overstuffed baggage banging against his legs with every step. He doesn’t expect the sudden rush of mortification that blindsides him when Eddie lets go of his suitcases and straightens up to take a look around. It’s just that he looks so out of place here, a moving image in the static space Richie’s spent so many years alone in. All he can think about is what it must look like to Eddie.

“Want me to fetch you some Clorox wipes?” Richie teases, using his knee to nudge the luggage out of the way of the door so he can finally shut and lock it. The last thing he wants is to feel like anyone might be overhearing them. He’d be a little curious, too, if the guy who only ever has his manager over suddenly showed up with a handsome dude like Eddie.

He glances back at Eddie in time to catch him mid-yawn. _Aw._

“Tomorrow,” Eddie says resolutely. “But it’s tidy… for you.” 

“Actually, it’s tidy for _you,”_ Richie jokes. He can hear the nerves creeping into his voice, making it come out a little too high and fast, but he can’t quite stop himself. “Here at Tozier Resorts, customer satisfaction is our number one priority. No matter how exacting the standards”—

Eddie shoves at his upper arm, his attempt at a straight face crumbling into open-mouthed laughter. 

—“and no matter how violent the guest”—

“I’m not that bad! I appreciate it, okay? I’m sure it was _very_ hard for you to use actual cleaning products for once in your life.”

“Oh shit, was I supposed to – you mean I can’t just get a little spit-shine going and call it good? Bad news, Eds…”

Eddie pulls a face. “It’s funny because I believe it.”

Richie grins back at him. “Saliva aside, if you wanna get cleaned up first, I can get dinner heated up. It’s just down the hall; yours is the one on the left. Just look for the minion-print comforter.”

Eddie’s grateful look morphs into one of quiet horror. “If you’re not joking I’m seriously going to strangle you.”

“Jeez, Eds, if you’d rather have Olaf you can just say so.”

“Fuck you, appreciation rescinded,” Eddie says. He takes the smallest of his four bags with him and heads off down the hall. Richie smiles to himself when he hears the guest room’s door swing open, followed by a relieved sigh. 

“I really do have one with the talking snowman on it,” Richie calls, meandering into the kitchen with an ear still turned toward the bedrooms. “Just say the word, and it’s yours!”

He’s pretty sure Eddie heard him, but he doesn’t dignify it with a response this time.

Richie decides last-minute to throw some garlic bread in the oven. He might as well, right? Eddie’s first meal in the grand state of California should come with a fresh side dish. 

It isn’t until he’s pulling it out of the oven and Eddie comes to perch himself on one of Richie’s little-used bar stools that Richie remembers one very crucial detail.

“Smells great,” Eddie comments. His chin is resting on his hand, and his hair is damp from a shower. He’s changed into a pair of sweats and a clean T-shirt. Richie’s just glad he remembered to clear off the counter. 

“Uh, yeah, except I kinda forgot you’d need something gluten free?” Richie says with a grimace. “The noodles are, but the really good stuff…”

“Oh,” Eddie says. Even he sounds a little surprised when he continues, “That’s… fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Eddie echoes, stealing an apple from the basket Richie keeps on the counter. It would probably look fancier if the basket were a little less stained, not that Eddie seems to mind. Instead of biting into the fruit, he just starts picking at the stem.

“I actually went to see a doctor,” he murmurs, like it’s an admission he’d rather not make. “Don’t really have any allergies. Big surprise, huh?”

“Not really,” Richie hedges. He gestures at the slowly-cooling pan of fragrant bread. “That’s terrible for me, though. Means I have to actually share this.”

Eddie smiles. “Yeah, dibs on a bunch of that. Was that the surprise, or do I smell something else?”

“Oh yeah,” Richie says, beaming. It’s a good thing he hasn’t already taken his oven mitts off; he’s so eager to reveal the punchline that he’d probably have forgotten to put them on before pulling the piping hot casserole dish off the oven’s middle rack. The timing couldn’t have been better; it looks as fresh and steamy as it did a few hours ago, despite the reheating.

“See, it’s you!”

Eddie’s mouth falls open in a toothy grin. “You went to that much trouble for a joke?”

“Eddie, you and I both know I would go to way more trouble than this for a joke,” Richie solemnly swears. “And before you get too excited, I’ve never done _baked_ spaghetti before, so Tozier Resorts cannot guarantee a refund if you don’t like it.”

Eddie hops off his stool and comes around the counter to join Richie. “I really don’t think I’ll need one. I was willing to settle for anything but Taco Bell.”

“I wouldn’t do that to ya, Eds,” Richie says. He lets Eddie open a few wrong cabinets before he takes pity and adds, “Plates are over the sink. And that’s the silverware drawer.” With a nod of his head, he indicates the one Eddie’s standing right in front of.

“Thanks.” 

Richie cuts two generous slices from the dish while Eddie gets things ready behind him. The idea was for him to bring said things over here so no one risks dropping hot tomato sauce on themselves, but Eddie doesn’t.

He’s stopped in front of the fridge, plates and forks clutched in one hand while the other gently adjusts one of the postcards stuck just below eye level. Despite Eddie’s assertion that New York’s postcards are as tacky as they come, the ones he’s actually chosen to send have all been nice photographs of NYC landmarks. Richie likes to imagine he gets out and sees the sights himself every time he picks one up, but as for himself, he prefers Eddie’s notes to towering shots of the Empire State Building and the city skyline at night. 

Eddie’s no Benjamin Hanscom by a longshot, but Richie never gets tired of seeing his handwritten complaints about tourists and traffic and _‘Hope you’re enjoying the weather over there, because it’s fucking miserable here.’_ Richie responded to that one with a “Sunny California” postcard featuring a cartoon sun wearing shades and about a dozen other drawings of not-entirely-inaccurate Cali stereotypes. 

He remembers what he wrote, too: _‘My printer is out of ink so just imagine I taped a picture of my face over the buffest cartoon guy on the beach.’_

Jeez. At least he never actually got that photo of Eddie. That would have been at least twenty percent more damning than _only_ leaving all of Eddie’s postcards picture side-down, like a character in a period drama keeping a drawerful of lovingly crafted, tastefully perfumed notes. His only other saving grace is the fact that Eddie already specifically mentioned doing the same thing with the stuff Richie’s sent him, possibly minus the turning them over so only the notes on the back are visible.

Eddie doesn’t say anything about it when he finally catches Richie staring. He just murmurs an apology and jumps back into helping Richie get their dinner plated. 

That done, Richie starts to make a beeline for his usual spot in the living room. There’s a several-second delay before he remembers, _Oh, right – table,_ and doubles back to take the seat opposite Eddie. It’s the first thing Eddie _doesn’t_ notice, because by the time Richie sets his own plate down, he’s already digging in like his life depends on it.

“Holy shit,” he says after downing easily three times as much as Richie manages in the same few minutes. His eyes flutter briefly shut in a show of pure bliss. “‘S so fucking good.”

Richie beams. It _is,_ but it feels a million times better to hear that from Eddie.

“I know how to play to my strengths.” His food bribe having been accepted, Richie decides to press his luck a little. “Does it bother you?” 

Eddie hums a question around another mouthful of noodles and sauce.

 _“Not_ being allergic to things?”

Eddie swallows in a hurry. “Uh, no. It’s just ridiculous, right? I knew better in high school. Fuck, I knew in _middle school.”_

 _He’s_ embarrassed? _Seriously?_

“For what it’s worth, I think it’s great that you know now. You move fast, Eds.” A lot faster than Richie does, clearly. It’s not a race, but if it were, Eddie would be lapping Richie like a hare being chased by hungry dogs.

Eddie winces and lowers his fork back to his plate. “Too fast?”

“What? No – I meant in a good way. You could have your own reality show. Or a self-help book. _How To Kill a Clown and Change Your Life in Eight Months Or Less,_ by best-selling risk analyst Eddie Kaspbrak.’ I’d totally pitch it for you on stage.”

“You’d get booed right off,” Eddie sighs. “You’re probably the only person who doesn’t think the last eight months just look like a really ugly mid-life crisis.”

“You know none of the Losers think that.”

Eddie shrugs. “Bev’s still worried about the… job thing. And Stan.”

“Stan’s been planning his retirement fund since we were like fourteen,” Richie announces, tearing into a chunk of garlic bread with a gusto he hopes will really drive his point home. Eddie snorts, and one corner of his mouth twitches up into a reluctant half-smile. “And Bev knows firsthand how stressful all the shit you’ve been dealing with is. Of course she’s worried. Doesn’t mean anyone thinks you made a mistake.”

“Everyone I knew in New York does,” Eddie argues, but then he straightens up a little in his seat. “Alright, you’re… not wrong. It’s just been… like you said, fast.”

“Well, you can slow down here with me,” Richie promises. “When I’m not running you through a tour of literally every touristy thing I can think of.”

Eddie’s half-smile broadens into a full one. “I’m looking forward to it. And you’ll – you’ll tell me if I get in the way, right?”

“Are you kidding? I’m counting on you to make sure I actually get some fucking writing done. I’m worse than Bill.”

Eddie imitates the crack of a whip, using his fork as a stand-in for the handle. “I can work on my own shit at the same time. It’s perfect.”

 _Perfect._ Yeah, if this arrangement doesn’t wind up killing Richie outright, it just might be.

-*-

Richie pauses by the counter. His keys are there, right where he haphazardly tossed them yesterday. Eddie glances up from his laptop at the sound of metal clinking in Richie’s hand, so Richie shrugs and dangles them in front of himself like they’re a tantalizing bunch of grapes. “I was gonna go grab some things at the store. Do you need anything?”

Eddie closes his laptop without a moment’s hesitation. Come to think, it _has_ been a while since Richie heard the clatter of typing from the general vicinity of the kitchen table. “Mind if I come with?”

“Sure! There’s a cafe right nearby that has really good pastries. We could hit that up afterward, if you want.”

Eddie smirks at him. He’s already tugging on a light jacket. “Weren’t we supposed to be working today?”

“A little coffee break never hurt anyone.”

“Well, that is _one_ thing you suck at making,” Eddie reasons. “I can’t believe you don’t just get a Keurig or something.”

Richie would pretend to be offended by the mere implication, but really, he’s just never gotten around to it. “Sounds like someone doesn’t want the stew I was planning, after all.”

He doesn’t know what to make of Eddie’s responding frown. He was obviously kidding; he’s positively _thriving_ off the chance to finally share meals with another person, and Eddie’s accused him of being a show-off enough times to make it clear that he’s aware of that. It’s a win-win for both of them, at least until Richie finally finds a dish Eddie won’t eat. Which is unlikely, actually, given how good a grasp he has on Eddie’s preferences. If anything, he’s gotten _less_ picky than he was when they were kids. 

Richie is nonetheless looking forward to a surprise or two. Give it another week, and he’ll be back to his usual culinary experimentation; some of those final products would scare _anyone._ If he pushes Eddie’s buttons enough, maybe he’ll start making special requests. That should _not_ be as exciting a prospect as it is, but it really fucking is.

“Yeah, I should get some stuff,” Eddie says, more to himself than to Richie. “Maybe I can help tonight?”

“Help me cook?” Richie feels positively buoyant; this afternoon just keeps getting better and better. “Fuck, yeah. I mean, you _still_ don’t have to even ask. It’s your kitchen, too. But – yeah, dude, it’ll be fun!”

Eddie looks mollified, if not exactly _convinced._ He looks downright triumphant when Richie wordlessly passes him his keys in the garage; sans the jet lag, he hasn’t been shy about how little he prefers Richie’s driving to his own. As soon as he finally makes up his mind about shipping his own car cross-country versus hiring someone to drive it, he won’t even have to worry about Richie’s questionable taste in vehicles.

 _“It’s not about how cool it looks, Richie, it’s about how_ good _it is, and this thing is_ not _as good as it looks.”_

_“Aw, you think my car looks good?”_

To Richie’s pleasant surprise, Eddie doesn’t part ways with him the second they get inside the store; in fact, he nods at the cart Richie picks up by the door and wonders, “Do we really need that much? There are baskets over there.”

“I’m planning ahead,” Richie says with a shrug and an internal thrill over that word choice. _We._ As they roll through the produce section and Richie collects an assortment of vegetables in flimsy plastic bags, he keeps stealing glances at Eddie – for once in his life, more than he steals glances at passersby. They could be a couple, the two of them, shopping shoulder-to-shoulder and cracking up over Richie’s intentional misreading of “jazz apples.”

It’s probably the first time some part of him has actually hoped that people _do_ make that assumption. They’re not exactly exchanging kisses over their gradually filling shopping cart, but it’s refreshing, anyway, to be so unconcerned. Even when Eddie has nothing to be brave about, his bravery is contagious.

At some point, Eddie stops just watching Richie and starts picking a few things out for himself. 

“I can’t believe that you of all people went straight for the vegetables,” he comments, setting a disgustingly large carton of yogurt down alongside Richie’s chicken breasts and garlic cloves. “I was starting to assume you were still ‘allergic’ to salads.”

“Just trying to keep you healthy, Eds,” Richie tells him. “I’ll be the first to admit I underuse them, though.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and tries to bite down on his smile. “I’m shocked to hear it.”

He makes a grab for a can of chicken stock; Richie stops him with a gentle hand on his arm. 

“Don’t need that,” he says. “I make my own.”

Eddie stares at him for a moment before lowering his hand with a sigh. He sounds a little dejected when he says, “Of fucking course you do.”

Richie doesn’t know what to do with that, so he backtracks. “But if you’d rather use this stuff, that’s fine. I do when I’m pressed for time”—except that just deepens the lines of Eddie’s scowl. Richie decides to try a different approach. “…We can make some tonight, if you wanna see how it’s done?”

“I don’t need”—Eddie begins, then stops. He sighs again and peers at Richie like he’s being asked to climb down a manhole into a monster’s lair, again. “I’d like that.”

-*-

Eddie never outright asks Richie to teach him anything, but over the course of a few weeks they settle into a new routine when it comes to preparing meals. Eddie pays close attention to everything Richie does in the kitchen, asks a ton of questions and eventually starts saying things like, “You can just keep stirring that, I’ll get this stuff chopped up.”

Which is how Richie usually winds up getting distracted by Eddie and his auto mechanic’s hands; when it comes to using any tool, even a knife, he’s quick and neat, if also overly suspicious of the slight discolorations that Richie assures him aren’t unsafe to eat, to little avail.

Eddie is also adorably frustrated to learn that Richie only _sort of_ follows recipes.

“They’re more useful as rough guidelines,” he explains. “Like, sometimes they just don’t call for enough… garlic, or whatever, or you can make whatever it is better by adding something extra or cooking it different.”

He is also honor-bound to admit that his deviations from by-the-book instructions don’t _always_ result in better food. “More like eighty percent of the time. But I haven’t _ruined_ anything since college.”

All Eddie has to do is give him a look that says “I doubt that” and Richie kicks at him from his end of the couch. Eddie is predictably opposed to eating proper meals anywhere but the dining room, but only a real maniac would refuse to indulge in a movie and popcorn sprawled out across cushions.

“Okay, we’re fucking old and that was a million years ago. It’s still been a while.”

“Speak for yourself,” Eddie snickers. “So are you one of those ‘cooking is an art form’ guys, then?”

“Bet you think it’s a science,” Richie shoots back, and it’s Eddie’s turn to kick. He gets him right in the knee; Richie retaliates by chucking a piece of popcorn at his face. “Do I look like the kind of guy who calls my baked mac and cheese art?”

“Honestly? Yes,” Eddie says. “You call _dick jokes_ art.”

Richie puts on his best Elle Woods. “What, like they’re not?”

Eddie comes within an inch of choking on a piece of popcorn while Richie tosses another kernel at him. It hits him square in his left dimple. Eddie plucks it off his chest and pops it in his mouth, one eyebrow arched as if to say, _“See? I can be gross, too.”_

“Do you ever plan on letting the rest of us preview your latest _art?”_

It’s not like it’s the first time Eddie’s let on that he’s curious about just what, exactly, Richie’s been so busy with, beyond the obvious “new material.” He’s just never _asked._

“Oh, so it isn’t art until you want early access to a Tozier set,” he deflects with a big, toothy smile. “I can’t believe you were just using me for my dick jokes this entire time.”

“At least you could count on me to honestly tell you which ones aren’t funny.”

“Even Ben and Mike wouldn’t hesitate to obliterate me for telling unfunny jokes,” Richie points out. “You’re not special.”

Eddie turns his lips into a flat line. It’s like the adult equivalent of a pout, coming from someone who wouldn’t be caught dead actually pouting. 

“Don’t comedians ever workshop their shit?”

How did the conversation turn to this, anyway? It would be too obvious to come right out and ask Eddie what’s up the sudden persistent interest; besides, the interest would be nothing but flattering if Richie didn’t also feel so put on the spot. Even without tearing his own eyes from the screen, he can tell Eddie’s watching him, instead, and it’s as tempting as it is terrifying to consider just opening his mouth and letting a few entirely honest words fall out.

He’s waited longer than he promised himself he would as it is, but a _Legally Blonde_ double-feature doesn’t exactly seem like the right backdrop for a partial confession to his lifelong crush.

“It’s kind of personal,” he says, settling for _extremely partial_ partial honesty. “And I don’t want my new material to be the first thing you guys hear about it.”

Instead of making a quip about Richie finally coming around (har, har) to considering his dick a personal matter, Eddie settles back against the armrest and nudges Richie’s thigh to get his attention.

“I’m…” 

He stops and swallows, except that this time there’s nothing in his mouth.

“I’m all ears,” he murmurs. “When you’re ready, obviously. Sorry for pushing.”

Richie reaches out to pat his knee. _Don’t worry about it._ It’s a little awkward, but Eddie takes it in stride. “You’re already first in line, Eds.” 

“I’ll be sure to remember the rotten tomatoes, then,” Eddie promises, offhandedly like they weren’t just having a serious moment.

Richie actually _does_ choke on his popcorn. “That – that’s not actually how workshops work. You know that, right?”

But Eddie’s only response is a playfully clueless hum. 

-*-

Their latest soup – something like the sixth one they’ve made together, but who’s counting? – is entirely improvised, as all the best soups are. Richie particularly enjoys lawless concoctions like this because they make him feel like a witch stirring up a bubbling cauldron. All he’s missing is a pointy, wide-brimmed hat. And a cloak, too, except that as Eddie so reasonably points out, loose clothing and exposed heat sources don’t mix.

Aw, well; his wooden serving spoon is a good enough wand in a pinch; he brandishes it at Eddie and cackles ominously while Eddie kindly chooses to overlook the flecks of broth that fly off of it in all directions.

“And that’s what cooking is all about,” Richie concludes with a grand bow.

“Halloween in May?” The way Eddie is looking at him is nothing if not fond. Fondly exasperated.

“You do know that because you said that, I’m now legally required to bake cookies in the shape of pumpkins, right?” He doesn’t give Eddie a chance to protest before shoving the ladle-slash-wand at him. “Here, see if it needs anything.”

“Are you planning to put that back in the soup afterward?” Eddie asks pointedly. Richie gives him a guilty smile – all the answer Eddie needs to snort and go pick out two spoons from the silverware drawer.

It’s such a simple thrill, watching Eddie navigate their shared space with the same casual familiarity he used to have in Maggie Tozier’s kitchen. Outwardly mundane moments like that have somehow become so important to Richie that he never wants them to end. Considering that mundane moments are likely all he’ll ever have with Eddie, he doesn’t think he can be blamed for that. 

Eddie takes a bite after spending way too long blowing on it to cool it. He swallows it ravenously and makes to get a second spoonful with the same utensil before abruptly freezing and shooting Richie a sheepish look. 

“That bad, huh?” Richie teases. He waits until Eddie’s back is turned to get a taste, himself – not bad at all.

“Needs a little more eye of newt,” Eddie says. There’s a twinkle in his eye when he comes back to stand at Richie’s side. “Maybe some thyme?”

“Good call,” Richie agrees. He specifically does _not_ ruffle Eddie’s hair and compliment him on how much better he’s gotten at identifying flavors and picking out spices, because he promised himself he wouldn’t get too didactic about it. Usually, instead of outright explaining, he drops helpful tidbits into rambling anecdotes – the first time he set fire to something and his subsequent banishment from the communal dorm kitchen, the cooking podcast he tried but got bored of, stuff he’s seen in movies and decided to replicate for himself. He still has yet to make good on his promise to cook ratatouille, but one of these nights, he will.

Eddie’s told him he sounds like the introductory part of every online recipe ever, but he references those stories often enough that it’d be obvious he enjoys them even if it weren’t also clear in every line of his smiling face.

Luckily, Richie has a near-endless supply of them.

-*-

In his dream, Richie clings to Eddie with limbs that feel as weak and light as feathers. Eddie bleeds in slow motion and Richie can’t press hard enough to make it stop. He can’t hold on tight enough to avoid being lifted away. He can’t see through all the dust and suffocating darkness. He’s terrified that the metal tang on his tongue is the taste of Eddie’s blood. That his teeth are stained pink with it, that the sharp smell of it has coated his nostrils so thoroughly that he’ll never smell anything else.

“Richie”—

There are hands on his shoulders, pulling, dragging, and Richie flails against the grip until his eyes snap open and he draws a choked, shuddering gasp that doesn’t feel like it puts any air in his lungs at all. 

“Hey, there you go”—

Richie doesn’t think; he just makes fists of Eddie’s shirt and flips him onto his back so he can brace himself against him. Eddie draws a sharp breath beneath him, his face lit by the warm orange glow of ambient city lights. Richie never closes his blinds anymore because he figures that’s less embarrassing than risking Eddie noticing an actual nightlight. He’d probably…

Oh, shit.

“Fuck,” Richie chokes. He lets go of Eddie and rolls off of him in a jumble of sweaty, shaking limbs and uneven breathing. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Eddie says. He sounds shaken, himself. Richie risks a furtive glance at him but can’t make out any details without his glasses. He tries to ask if he hurt him, but just the thought of it makes his stomach lurch so abruptly that he gags into the palm he presses to his sweat-damp face.

Eddie presses a palm to his back; once Richie gets past the initial urge to flinch away from it, he finds that it actually helps a little. Still, the effort to stay still leaves him without the energy to stifle a short sob.

“I’m – I’m sorry,” he says again, and to himself, like a mantra, he adds, “You’re okay.”

“I’m… yeah, Rich, I’m fine,” Eddie says, sounding perplexed. “Here.”

Eddie presses cool plastic into Richie’s unoccupied hand. He must take longer than he thinks to do anything with it, though, because Eddie winds up taking his hand off his back to gently peel Richie’s own hand off his face. He slips Richie’s glasses on for him. His fingers brush Richie’s temples; the moment stretches. Slender fingers brush damp hair off his forehead.

“Gonna be sick?”

Richie swallows. “Mmmnope.”

“Think you can sleep?”

A shudder runs down Richie’s spine; he misses the reassuring warmth of Eddie’s touch. “What time is it?”

Eddie smiles. His hair is sticking up in the back, and his bangs have fallen across his forehead. “Four thirty, give or take. Want some company?”

“I woke you up,” Richie realizes. “Shit.”

“Tit for tat,” Eddie says with a shrug. “C’mon, I’ll fix us some warm milk.”

Richie’s never liked the taste of plain milk when it’s cold, let alone warmed up, but the way Eddie says it, it sounds good. Eddie tugs him to his feet and tries to usher him out to the couch, but the thought of letting him out of his sight with that fucking nightmare still so fresh in his mind makes Richie feel like there’s a giant spike running through _his_ chest. He takes one of the counter bar stools instead and tries to ignore the unpleasant combination of dragging exhaustion and buzzing adrenaline.

“There’s some whiskey in the liquor cabinet.” 

Eddie makes a face but gets it down anyway. He even uses a shot glass to measure out a single serving. Richie expects that to be the end of it, but then he also raids the spice cabinet for a dash of vanilla extract and some sugar. 

“Do we have malt powder?” he asks. 

“What?”

“Never mind,” Eddie says lightly. “We should get some, though. It’s not really a toddy without it.”

“Oh,” Richie says, tickled. “‘S that a thing?” And here he just wanted something with a little extra bite to take the edge off.

Eddie rolls his eyes and leads Richie to the couch, letting him get settled before he passes him his spiked milk. He keeps the plain one for himself. When he eases himself onto the couch, it’s with a soft sigh and much less distance between them than they usually start out with. Their shoulders are already brushing. “Yeah, Rich. They’re… well, you’d like them better than me, since you actually like whiskey.”

Richie holds the mug close to his chest, braced against his knees. The heat of it seeps into his fingers. His first sip warms him from the inside out. Slows him down. 

“This is good,” he marvels. “Really good. You evil genius, you.”

Eddie chuckles. “Couldn’t miss my chance to impress _you_ for once.”

“You impress me all the time,” Richie says, too seriously. He doesn’t feel like taking it back, anyway.

Eddie buries his smile in his mug of milk, but it’s still there when he looks up. Richie downs another swallow of liquid courage and takes a few slow breaths. They come out even and steady.

“You know how Bev saw a bunch of fucked up shit she didn’t even wanna tell us about in detail.”

A crease appears in Eddie’s brow. “Yeah.”

“I only saw one. It just lasted… I don’t know, it felt like days.”

“Jesus,” Eddie mutters. “Have you talked to her about it?”

Richie sighs. “She’s got enough on her plate as it is. I think she kind of… suspects, though.”

“Does that happen a lot?” Eddie asks. He jerks his head in the vague direction of Richie’s bedroom. 

It’s hard not to laugh. “No way I’m the only one with nightmares.”

“Nightmares about me,” Eddie says, no-nonsense.

Richie laughs humorlessly. “What gave that away? The third-degree assault when you tried to wake me up?”

Eddie hesitates. Sets his drink down on the end table. “You were saying my name.”

Well, shit. “It’s not like… I wasn’t actually… _attacking_ you.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“You did the same thing in Derry,” Eddie says quietly, and gestures at himself. “I guess I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t, so… kind of a dick move, not thanking you.”

“You don’t ever have to thank me for that,” Richie says, again with too much feeling. It’s the closest to _I love you_ he’s ever come. 

“Except yeah I do,” Eddie argues. “And I’m sorry you had to see what could’ve happened.”

The threat of unshed tears makes Richie’s tired eyes burn. “Hey, the clown did me a favor with that one. Guess It didn’t count on my cat-like reflexes.”

Eddie snorts. “How could anyone?”

For a while after that, the only sounds in the apartment are the occasional car passing outside, soft breathing and rustling fabric. Eddie finishes off his drink a little faster than Richie and winds up slumped against him, eyes closed for long enough that Richie can’t be sure if he’s still awake.

Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to broach the subject. Maybe it’s the combination of sleep deprivation and a little bit of alcohol. 

“Know how you were really eager to hear about what I’ve been working on? Why was that?”

Eddie grunts. It’s muffled against Richie’s sleeve as he snuggles a little closer in protest, and Richie’s heart nearly gives out right there. What the hell is he thinking, wasting a moment like this?

“Mm… well you’ve been working on it for months,” Eddie mumbles, his voice thick and slow. He says it like that’s an impressive feat and not just entirely too much time. “‘Course I wanna know about it.”

“Huh, yeah,” Richie hums, hating himself a little for relaxing at the first sign that Eddie doesn’t already know. Somewhere in the back of his mind, there’s been that niggling fear that maybe he just caught a glimpse of his computer screen when Richie wasn’t there to slam it shut at the first sign of approaching eyes. But that would be pretty out of character for Eddie, even if he didn’t have any reason to think it was a big fucking secret.

Eddie shifts again, blinking a little blearily as he does but never actually straightening up off of Richie. 

“You said it was personal.”

Richie’s mouth goes dry as his eyes go wide. “Uh. Y-yeah,” he repeats a lot less casually.

“Just wouldn’t really be fair if you were the only Loser who _didn’t_ have big-ticket Issues to get over after all that,” Eddie says, kind of carefully. “I know it’s none of my business. I just… wondered.”

Richie wishes he hadn’t already finished off his drink. Now he doesn’t have any excuse not to keep talking, and what’s worse, he’s not even sure he wants one. He should be more nervous, he thinks. He should be cracking jokes to diffuse this thing.

“So… I have a few decades’ worth of experience behind a mic, right? And I didn’t _always_ let other people write for me.”

“Mmhm. Your early stuff was pretty funny. It was more you.”

Do _not_ get distracted by that, Richie scolds himself. At least not until he really needs something nice to dwell on alone in his room. He really wants to know if Eddie dredged those videos up before or after he knew who Richie was, only half because if it was before, he can definitely gloat about it. Don’t get distracted, but _definitely_ don’t forget to find out.

Confidence slightly bolstered, he continues, “Okay, yeah, so… y’know how many different coming out bits I’ve come up with?”

So much for experience; he doesn’t pause nearly long enough for Eddie to react to that, or even fully process it. 

“Like… dozens. Even _I_ can’t keep track of all the drafts I have saved. They’re gonna crash my fuckin’ hard drive one of these days, and then my manager’ll really kill me.”

“And _this_ is the version you decided to go with?” Eddie wonders without missing a beat. He’s pulled away so Richie can see his teasing smile. Richie’s lips are still forming the first sound in “fuck” when the smile gives way to musical laughter. Not amused laughter and _definitely_ not cruel or mocking; this is Eddie, after all. He wakes Richie up from nightmares and feeds him hot milk toddies. He can say that stupid drink name completely straightfaced, but ask if he likes “jizz apples” and he loses his composure faster than a ten-year-old making fart jokes.

“Does it need more crying?” Richie asks. “I probably have one or two like that buried somewhere. Figured it might freak the audience out more than hearing me say I’m gay.”

“You just might be able to pull that off,” Eddie says, still struggling a little to catch his breath. “But I don’t recommend it.”

“So? Can I still count on you for more recommendations? Serenade you with bad standup while you’re trying to cook?”

Eddie manages to wedge his arm between Richie’s back and the couch cushion lightning fast; his bony chin digs into Richie’s shoulder where he lets it fall. He’s warm. His breath tickles Richie’s neck when he speaks. Richie can only think in the form of a bulleted list.

 _“Yes,_ Rich, of course I’d love to help. I don’t exactly know what to say, but… just, thanks for telling me. That’s so exciting.” He laughs again. Richie feels it thrum against his own chest, and now he’s finally, _actually_ crying.

“I don’t know what you’re supposed to say, either, but you’re welcome,” he breathes. “Actually, thank you, too. It’s way too early in the morning for a ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’ talk.”

“Fuck that,” Eddie mutters. “But I – we _do_ all love you, Rich. Whenever you decide to tell the rest of the Losers, you know they’ll wanna hug it out with you, too.”

Richie ducks so his tears have somewhere to go – namely, Eddie’s T-shirt. It’s Richie’s, actually, but he likes the way it hangs on Eddie too much to ask for it back. It became Eddie’s the moment Richie lent it to him because Eddie forgot to do laundry before bed. (Richie remembers it fondly as a cold day in hell.) 

“Ugh, deja vu,” Eddie grumbles, presumably because he’s noticed the growing wet spot on his shoulder.

Richie snakes his own arms around Eddie before he can wiggle away. “Nuh-uh, it’s baby’s first coming out, I _earned_ this.”

Eddie relents immediately. “Yeah, I guess you did.”

“You’re still gonna change that shirt before you go to bed,” Richie accuses.

“Not if I fall asleep right here.”

Richie expects that to be his cue to let Eddie go for real this time, but Eddie just shoves at him until he leans back onto the cushions. The only reason Eddie doesn’t tumble off onto the floor is that Richie keeps holding him, and he only does that because he can’t figure out what else he should do in response to his best friend going well out of his way to spoon him. 

The second time Eddie falls asleep on him, Richie doesn’t wake him up right away, although he does wish he’d had the presence of mind to bring his cell phone out here with him. He could have given Ben and Bill a run for their money trying to immortalize this night in words. He could have thrown it all into an email draft, a note, a text he wouldn’t dare send.

Instead, he has to settle for soliloquizing internally about Eddie’s clenched teeth and mussed hair where absolutely no one but himself will ever be privy to it. The way his body slots against Richie’s like tetris blocks. How warm he is – and heavy and pointy and comfortable, anyway.

At some point, his silent musing gives way to sweet dreams. Vivid, too; the cool press of a kiss at his temples feels so real he’s genuinely surprised when he wakes up and finds Eddie missing from the couch, if not nowhere in sight.

“Hey,” Eddie calls from the kitchen as soon as Richie sits up. He’s nursing a cup of coffee and, given the way he stretches with a pinched look of discomfort, probably a crick in his neck that could put the one in Richie’s to shame. “You want some of this?”

Richie gives him a slow, sleepy smile. “Gimme the biggest mug you got.”

-*-

Turns out that having a few real-life, personal coming out experiences under his belt imbues Richie’s unpolished material with the kind of structure it needed all along, on top of giving him a lot more to work with. Who’da thought?

His rough draft is still pretty rough, but Eddie likes it. Even Ben and Stan agree that he’s got something good in the works, and Richie can hear when Mike’s politely faked laughter segues into belly laughter. He figures that’s as good a sign as any that it’s finally time to give his beleaguered manager a call.

He wants to meet the next day over coffee; the only surprise there is that he doesn’t try to get Richie out the door while he’s still on the line. 

It would have been fair if he had. All said, Richie’s hiatus has gone on for so long that as his manager helpfully points out, there are fans on Twitter theorizing – to varying degrees of sincerity – that he’s actually dead and in the process of being replaced with a lifelike Trashmouth robot. 

He’s considering opening his first show with something about that. Eddie’s initial reactions prove that his improvised lines and bad robot impressions are a go, and possibly Jason will consider it a peace offering for all the shit he’s pulled in the past year. 

If he’s being honest, though, all this progress coming so soon after a long stand-still is disorienting. He’s a little spooked.

“I’m starting to see what you meant about going too fast,” he tells Eddie. If the hand he uses to raise his coffee mug back to his lips were shaking enough to slosh the lukewarm dregs all over the kitchen floor, that would really complete the picture. 

Eddie eyes Richie’s drink with thinly veiled distaste. He _is_ literally about to go get more coffee, but he’s already on the road to caffeine overload. There’s no point stopping _now._

“You’re doing fine,” Eddie promises. “If this guy let you use the shit you were doing before, he’d have to be insane not to jump on this.”

He has a point, understandable managerial concern about a bumpy transition aside. But that’s not what Richie’s worried about. Actually, he might not be worried _about_ anything. He’s just worried. Maybe fifty percent because part of this meeting de facto involves coming out to someone he _doesn’t_ have a personal relationship with, and _wouldn’t you know it,_ it’s gotten easier, but it hasn’t gotten easy. _Yet._

“I’m not doing anything the rest of the day,” Richie promises him. “After this, that’s it. I’m gonna hot-glue my ass to the armchair and spend the day watching the lowest budget shit I can find on streaming.”

Eddie nods. “You do have an uncanny ability to sniff it out.”

“That’s why they call us gorehounds.”

A soft grin. Eddie sets his own mug of coffee down on the counter behind him and starts to usher Richie toward the door. “First, you have to actually make it there. _On time,_ or I won’t even testify against him if he kills you on the spot.”

“That’s fair. Hey, Eds.”

“Hey, late to work.”

With one hand braced on the doorframe and another heavy on Eddie’s shoulder, Richie leans in close and presses a quick kiss to Eddie’s cheek. He heads off the inevitable panic that will ensue as soon as his brain can kick back into gear by throwing in a wink to match Eddie’s wide-eyed blinking.

“Wish me luck.”

He closes the door behind himself without getting a response, but he’s only halfway down the hall when he hears it swing open again.

“Good luck,” Eddie calls after him. There’s a quaver to his voice, but when Richie glances over his shoulder, he’s smiling, his bare fingers ghosting over the spot where Richie’s lips were only a moment ago.

-*-

The apartment smells heavenly when Richie returns, paper bagged peace offering in hand and a half-dozen carefully-worded apologies on the tip of his tongue. In all honesty, he’s been looking forward to coming home since the moment he stepped into the elevator to leave, and he already had half a mind to surprise Eddie with scones from their new favorite cafe – the ones with big sugar crystals and fresh berries still warm from the oven – even before he went and did something stupid and impulsive. 

He kicks his shoes off by the door – a preference of Eddie’s that he doesn’t mind humoring – and rounds the corner to find Eddie standing over the stove. One of Richie’s cookbooks is lying open on the counter, the yellow one Richie still intends to work through page-by-page until he’s tackled everything in it at least once. 

“What’s up, Eds?”

“Oh,” Eddie startles. He stops frowning at the pan’s suspiciously omelette-like contents long enough to flash a smile at Richie. “That was fast.”

“And relatively painless,” Richie proudly informs him. “There’s still a lotta logistics to work out, gotta make sure audiences around here don’t completely hate this stuff before we commit to a tour, but… looks like you could definitely be a part of that audience, if you want.”

“I _better_ be,” Eddie says. “Do you know when yet? And where? We have to invite everyone.”

“I can hear the heckling from here,” Richie jokes. “And not exactly, but it could be as soon as next week.”

Eddie deflates. “That’s pretty short notice.”

“Aw, I’ll make sure you’re all there for the actual tour,” Richie reassures him. “But it’d mean the world if _you_ could drop in for the first show.”

“Just the first?” Eddie shrugs. “I… wouldn’t mind? Coming to all of them.”

“Consider it done,” Richie promises. He catches Eddie eyeing the logo on the bag of scones when he remembers to put it down in an out-of-the-way spot, and the momentary relief of finding Eddie as much at ease with him as he ever is disappears in a flash. “Oh. Got you these, too. I guess it’s… a thank you?”

“You can thank me after you try these,” Eddie decides. “I think they look pretty good for a first attempt.”

“Uh, yeah, I’m about to grab that right off the pan, but – I kinda meant for not freaking out this morning,” Richie clarifies. “I wasn’t thinking. I mean – if you were just postponing the freakout for when you’re not working over a hot stove, don’t let me stop you, but”—

Eddie interrupts him with a gentle hand on his arm. “Wanna take a breath?”

“I’m breathing,” Richie says, and then sucks in a deep breath he doesn’t release.

The corner of Eddie’s mouth quirks up. “Me, too.”

Richie lets the breath go in a rush. “You’re breathing?”

“No, I’m gay, too.” 

Richie watches Eddie deftly flip one of the omelettes to check the other side. He nods to himself and transfers them to two separate plates. That show-off – his hands are perfectly steady. 

“Oh,” Richie says, “uh… is it rude to ask, like… _so_ many things?”

“Before you do, let’s see…” Eddie moves his pan off the burner and turns off the stove before he starts counting off his fingers. “I’ve only _known_ known for… I guess as long as I’ve known about the allergy thing, give or take. You’re the only other person who knows and I’d prefer to keep it that way for a little while.”

“If you were just gonna say ‘me, too’ you could’ve done that when _I_ told _you,”_ Richie blurts. It’s a question disguised as a statement. It’s probably also fucking rude, but Eddie just shrugs. Maybe it’s not a good sign that he’s so used to Richie being kind of a jerk, but at least he knows enough not to be surprised every time Richie shoves his foot in his mouth. 

“Well, it was your moment. Like you said, you earned it. I wanted to let you soak up the attention without stealing any of your thunder. And,” he sighs, “I needed a little more time, after everything else.”

“That – yeah, shit, I’m sorry for asking. I get it.”

Eddie pulls the orange juice out of the fridge and pushes it into Richie’s hands. “‘S okay. Would you help me get the table set, though?”

“You can just sit, Eds, I’ll get it.”

Eddie huffs a short laugh. “No way, I’m gonna need to pace for this.”

Richie freezes, his arms still loaded up with a precariously balanced tower of plates, glasses and juice. “So you _are_ mad?” The dishes clink ominously as he turns to face Eddie head on. He’s got one hand wedged between the plates to keep the omelettes safe – a truly daring bid to make it all in one trip – so if anything falls, he has approximately zero chance of catching it. “I mean – makes sense, I get it. Last time I checked, just _also_ being gay didn’t equal blanket permission for me to go around kissing you whenever”—

“Whenever you feel like it?” Eddie finishes for him. He looks so… hopeful. And so thoroughly distracted that he hasn’t said a word about Richie’s leaning tower of breakable kitchenwares.

Oh. 

Okay – they really are gonna have a mess of broken glass and ceramic to clean up if Richie doesn’t put this stuff down. So he sets the table, complete with a reluctant second trip to retrieve the scones. 

Eddie follows him back with them, but true to his word, he doesn’t sit down. He just paces by his chair, the very same one Richie used to hate looking at because it had never been used by anyone. Richie uses the back of his to brace himself.

“Yeah,” he says, _finally,_ “except I feel like it at least a dozen times a day.”

“Yeah?”

“It really puts a dent in my productivity. You’re secretly the bane of my manager’s existence. And our press guy, can’t forget him…”

Eddie’s pacing takes him around the table to Richie’s chair, takes his hands and drapes them over Richie’s. Richie melts like butter in a pan before the words are out of Eddie’s mouth.

“Permission granted.”

 _Don’t have to tell_ me _twice –_ is what Richie would think if he were as gung ho now as he was with a caffeinated buzz at eleven a.m., but he’s settled down. He’s settled enough to be nervous, but without a hint of nausea. He feels like the world’s slowest detective; could this possibly be just the right amount of nervous to feel about kissing your lifelong crush?

He tilts Eddie’s face up with a gentle touch and gets to enjoy a solid several moments of charged eye contact before Eddie lets his eyes fall shut. The gentlest possible way of telling Richie to get on with it, so he does. Of course he does.

Eddie’s lips are soft. Richie stops worrying about how chapped _his_ are by comparison the instant Eddie’s hands come up to cup his cheeks, his ears, the back of his neck. It’s Eddie who holds Richie steady against the guilty urge to pull away, who gives his lower lip an exploratory lick that sends a renewed jolt through him. Who laughs, a gentle puff of breath against Richie’s barely-parted lips. 

“Kissing lessons for cooking lessons?” he offers. Before he lets go, he strokes the lobe of Richie’s right ear with his pointer finger, a little exploratory touch that stops Richie’s breath in his throat.

“J-just for that I’m gonna be like Gordon Ramsey about these eggs,” Richie warns him. 

“You _did_ interrupt me before I could try my hand at breakfast potatoes,” Eddie responds. “So I guess that’s points off for bad presentation and no sides.”

“Actually, letting me kiss the chef gives you _all_ the points.” Who the hell is he kidding? He couldn’t be a jerk about Eddie’s cooking if his life depended on it. In point of fact – he spears a fluffy bit of egg from one corner of his omelette and eats it standing up. When he’s done savoring it, cheese and veggies and all, he points an accusatory fork at Eddie. “Okay, first of all, you’re a liar for claiming this was your ‘first attempt.’”

“I guess I’m just naturally gifted,” Eddie laughs. “Consider it a ‘thank you’ for the kiss.”

Richie watches Eddie pull his chair out through a teary blur. “Eds, full disclosure – I don’t just. Look.”

Eddie watches him take his glasses off and set them on the table. Beyond that, it’s a lot easier if Richie can’t tell if Eddie is watching or not.

“I – I want to cook for you every day. I wanna cook _with_ you and fold takeout menus into paper airplanes to throw at you when we don’t feel like it, but we can’t make up our minds about what to order in, and I – when you burn your hand or nick your finger, I want to be the one who runs water over it and puts ointment on it and listens to you complain about it for twenty minutes straight. I want the satisfaction of watching you complain about other people’s cooking but not mine, and I love”— 

He stops to breathe. There’s a lingering taste in his mouth, and it’s all Eddie. Eddie’s lips, Eddie’s cooking. 

“I love you, too,” Eddie murmurs. Richie can’t get his glasses on fast enough. 

“Say it again,” he pleads. “Eds…”

Eddie’s answering smile could light up a room. It could keep a meal warm for days. “I love you, you big sap.”

“I fucking love you, too.”

Their dishes don’t even make it into the sink. Plenty of time to savor their not-so-newfound domestic bliss tomorrow (and the day after and the day after and the day after), but today there’s only one thing Richie wants to savor, and that’s Eddie, who laughs and licks and nibbles at Richie on the couch every time Richie comes up with a new potential nickname to give him.

Eddie – _buttercup, sugar, pumpkin, sweetheart, an absolute fuckin’ snack –_ he whispers them into his ear and writes the shape of them with his tongue.

**Author's Note:**

> Now is when I submit the full disclaimer that I am myself Not Much Of A Cook, although I did learn a thing or two from my dad. Here's hoping you couldn't tell at a glance!


End file.
